Michele and I set out to make personal bests riding the Palomares Canyon loop on Saturday. I'm pretty sure we succeeded, although I lost track of our time so I can't prove it. When we got back to the truck, I loaded my bike into the fork clamp in the back of the truck, but I got distracted before tightening the clamp. I drove off. Just as Michele was saying the bikes looked loose, my bike folded over into the bed of the truck.if both sides of the clamp had let go, everything would have been okay. One side retained its grip on the drop-out at the tip of the fork. The drop-out bent as the bike fell over! I'm on foot until the fork can be repaired. I hope a week will see it done.

We continued our series of training rides today - the Pinehurst loop from home. It's about 28 miles with a total of maybe 4000 feet of elevation gain. Pepi joined us for the ride. Once again, I forgot my camera. We usually make the loop in clockwise fashion. Today we went counterclockwise. Counterclockwise is somewhat more challenging because the grades are steeper. I enjoy counterclockwise more because we go quickly through the more boring part of the ride, Redwood Road, and more slowly through the most picturesque part, the ascent from Canyon to Skyline on Pinehurst Road. We reached 40 mph coming down Joaquin Miller; that's screaming by my standards though I've heard that professionals will reach 70 in a race on a steep hill!

Fifty-one days to go before departure. It's starting to feel alarmingly close. We talked tonight about which bird book to take with us: Sibley or the National Geographic. We hope to see some birds in Texas and the south that we don't have here.

Michele, our friend Pepi, and I rode the Palomares Loop on a very frosty morning. In fact, our original plan was to get onto the road about 9:30; after looking at the temperature out in Pleasanton, we decided to delay the start by an hour. Even then, I wore leg warmers and winter gloves and I layered a windbreaker over a thick maillot over a thermal shirt. I was comfortable in the sun but it was still nippy in the shade.

We parked at the Eden Canyon/Palomares Road exit from Hwy. 580. There's a longish climb parallel with the freeway to the top of the Dublin Grade, then a long descent into Dublin. My face was frozen by the time I reached the bottom of the hill!

We followed rolling Foothill Road to Sunol, then rode down Niles Canyon Road. That's a little intimidating for traffic and narrow to non-existent shoulders.

The return is on Palomares Road, the sweet part of the ride. The road ascends along Palomares Creek. We started in a shady canyon. You see Pepi making the climb at right.

The canyon opens into a small valley. There are a couple of wineries hidden in the valley as well as a monastery.

E Clampus Vitus is some sort of fraternal organization. I believe it's kind of a liars' club with the theme of the history of the West. They may be best known for the Drake's Plaque hoax of a century ago. I am charmed by their road sign! The road climbs to a ridgetop where we paused to put on our windbreakers for the descent. I reached over 35 mph going down. I wonder how fast real riders would be going?!

We planned to ride a loop over the two bridges across the Carquinez Strait tomorrow, but we're rained out.

Roy, Michele, Pepi, Gunnell, and I had an excellent training ride on Calaveras Road. The ride was about forty miles. In addition to getting some wholesome exercise, we saw golden eagles! The weather was cool but very clear. I forgot to take my camera so I can't post a photo. Wednesday we'll ride the Palomares loop if the weather permits.

Some guy who is riding around the world has gone through three sets of panniers. Based on his experience, he insists that Ortlieb "front rollers" are the best. I'll trust his opinion and buy a pair.

Michele and I had a good ride on Wednesday morning - Castro Valley BART station home along Redwood Road. Michele was strong. I usually pull away from her some on the hills, but I couldn't open up any space until we were nearly back to Skyline Blvd.! We're going to track our time on that ride in the future to compete against our previous best times.

Our group met last night to discuss plans. The one concrete result was that we will delay our start to March 18 so that Brooks can join us for at least the first leg of the trip. Another advantage is to start on a Sunday to minimize traffic going out of San Diego. I think John and Chi will likely join us for some later portion of the trip!

Tomorrow, we'll ride Calaveras Road south from Sunol for something of a hill-climb. Once we pass Sunol Regional Park, the road is remote and lovely. I'll post a photo.

Six of us rode the Delta DeAnza Trail today. The trail very roughly approximates the path of the Spanish explorer deAnza who tried to find a route in 1776 from San Francisco Bay to the Sierras. The present-day trail is a bike path following the route of some giant water conduits from the Concord area east. I didn't know what to expect for scenery when planning the ride, but I didn't expect the ride to be mostly between the back fences of houses on either side! The environment was disappointing. I'd like to post a picture, but I never bothered to get my camera out.

We eventually reached the Marsh Creek Regional Trail and the Big Break Regional Trail. Those trails were out in the marshes with wildlife around. We saw harrier hawks, white-tailed kites, red-tailed hawks, and various waterbirds.

We found a pizza place for lunch. One rider's tire found a couple of goathead thorns at the last moment and went flat. Much of lunch was devoted to meddling with her as she tried to fix the flat. She succeeded in spite of our best efforts.

We tried to return to the BART station as directly as possible. I missed a turn and got lost. An Antioch police officer got us facing the right way. We rode back on the deAnza trail just so I wouldn't get us lost again. It was a good day's ride for a start, about 38 miles, on a clear cool day.

One worry: Roy is having back pain. Maybe a change in riding position will help, he thinks.

I should say a word about my concept of training. In my view, training is important if you have a time challenge. You will record a faster time if you train beforehand. If you don't care how fast you go, training isn't very important. For our tour, we'll have about 60 miles to cover each day. As long as we get to our stopping place before dark, that's good enough for me. If I have to stop every hundred yards on a steep hill to catch my breath, I'll still get to the top eventually. My goal is to make the tour without breaking a sweat. I won't achieve that because some hills will be steep enough to cause sweat even pedaling slowly, but I will do my best always to stay within a comfortable pace that I can maintain all day.

Michele does not hold to that concept, however, so we took off this morning to climb about 1500 feet to Skyline Boulevard in the Oakland hills, down the other side through the aptly-named community of Canyon on Pinehurst Road, and back up to Skyline on Redwood Road and home.

There is one substantial climb on Pinehurst. At the top, we stopped to put on windbreakers for the descent and ran into four ladies who call themselves the "Babes on Bikes". They are our age or a little less young (older, if you insist upon that term). One is clearly a princess because she sports a tiara with jewels to make E. Taylor jealous on her helmet! I wish I had a photo! These vigorous ladies ride with their bike club and make tracks with their hiking club. One, Edith, has done both the San Diego to Florida tour we're planning and the New Orleans to Canada route. They're planning various European tours for this year, starting with a ride along the Danube from Prague to somewhere in Germany. They're an inspiration.

New Years Day! We sometimes bicycle past Morgan Territory Regional Park at the top of a high ridge from Mt. Diablo, but we've never explored the park. On New Year's Day, we drove out with the hound to hike the park. We were shocked at how nice the park is! Among many other birds, we saw a ton of acorn woodpeckers, handsome devils in black tuxedos wearing black and white clown makeup and bright red beanies. We settled into some sun-warmed west-facing rocks for a picnic lunch with meadowlarks for entertainment. Driving out, we saw a juvenile golden eagle, a pair of white-tailed kites, a pair of kestrels, and a harrier hawk. Very exciting!

Michele put us back on the bikes this afternoon. With our friend Gunnell, we took BART out to Castro Valley and pedaled home along Redwood Road. Two big hills to build our strength on.

Back to work tomorrow. A chance to rest.

Last time we made a coast-to-coast ride, we didn't do any preparation. We got pn our bikes and started riding. We were a lot stronger a week or two into the trip than when we started. The terrain from Astoria to Eugene was not challenging, in retrospect, though it seemed mountainous to us at the time. This approach will impress some as reckless. It's comfortable to me as "muddling through" is my primary life strategy.

Starting from San Diego, we will be looking at 3500 feet of climb. Michele doesn't want to undertake that climb in her customary soggy couch-potato condition. She insists that we train up like Lance Armstrong in late June. So for a start, yesterday we met up with a couple of friends to ride the Palomares Canyon loop. Over the Dublin grade to Foothill Road and on to Sunol. Seventeen miles. Maybe we should stop for lunch? Two thousand calories later, we stumbled out of the cafe and groaned onto our bicycles again. We made it over Palomares Road and back to the truck gasping and panting. I think we lost ground in the fitness war!